"Norton, Andre - Galactic Derelict" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Above that unwavering gunsight, gray eyes watched him with a chill detachment worse than any
vocal threat. Travis Fox considered himself a worthy descendant of generations of the toughest
warriors this stretch of country had ever seen. Yet he knew that neither he nor any of his kind had ever
before faced a man quite like this one. And this man was young, no older than himself, so that that
subtle menace did not altogether fit with the lithe, slender body or that calm, boyish face.

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"Drop it!" The man delivered his order with the authority

GALACTIC DERELICT

of one expecting no resistance. Travis did just that, allowing the rifle to slip from his hands and slide
across his leg to the gravel of the hillside.
"On your feet. Make it snappy. Down there. . . ." The stream of orders issued in a gentle voice and
even tone, both of which oddly increased the menace Travis sensed.
He stood up, turned downslope and walked forward, his hands up, palms out, at shoulder level. What
he had stumbled on here he did not know, but that it was important--and dangerous--Travis did not
doubt.
The man who was cooking and the man at the com set both sat back on their heels to survey him
calmly as he advanced, the high heels of his boots acting as brakes on the slope. To his eyes they were
little different from the white ranchers he knew in the district. Yet the cook . . .?
Travis studied him, puzzled, certain that he had seen the man or his likeness before under very different
circumstances.
"Where did you flush this one, Ross?" asked the man at the com.
"Lying up on the ridge, getting an eyeful," Travis' captor replied with his usual economy of words.
The cook stood up, wiped his hands on a cloth, and started toward them. He was the eldest of the three
strangers, his skin deeply tanned, his eyes a startlingly bright blue against that brown. He carried with
him an authority which did not suit his present employment but which marked him, for Travis, as the
leader of the party. The Apache guessed his own reception would depend upon this man's reaction.
Only why did some faint twist of memory persist in outlining the cook's head with a black square?
Since the stranger seemed to be in no hurry to ask questions, Travis met him eye to eye, drawing on his
own brand of patience. There was danger in this man, too, the same con-trolled force which had moved
the youngster when he trapped the Apache on the heights.

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GALACTIC DERELICT

"Apache." It was a statement, rather than a question. And it added a bit to Travis' estimation of the
stranger. There were few men nowadays who took the trouble, or had the real knowledge necessary,
to distinguish Apache from Hopi, Navajo, or Ute in one brief glance.
"Rancher?" That was a question this time and Travis gave it a truthful answer. He had a growing